Weird Exposures w D700 & D3s Under Ball Field Lites

<p>So, I was shooting all day yesterday at a championship Little League game. During the daylight hours all exposures were fine. But as the artificial lights came on I started getting a very strange exposure problem. I will typically shoot a series of images, of a play, perhaps 6-10. You would expect that all exposures would be the same (I'm shooting everything in manual modes except for the focus), but that's not what I was getting. The color would be all over the place from frame to frame. It looks like a WB issue. Also, one side of the image or the other will have a colored shadow sort of thing going on. I was sure my camera had shi* the bed but luckily I saw another person shooting the game using a D3s and he was having the same problem. After some conversation we came to the conclusion that the cameras were some how adversely effected by the lights under which we were shooting. Has anyone had a similar experience?</p><div></div>

<p>The cameras are not "adversely effected" by the lights. The cameras are recording what your eye cannot see: the lights cycling at 60 Hz. During that cycle, they change color and brightness.</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00XnJA<br /> <br /> There are other threads in the archives about this as well. (example: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00XDsh )</p>

<p>The animated gif I mention in that first thread is here:<br /> <br /> http://www.guyrhodes.com/photo/flicker_lapse.gif</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Rob is correct. <br>

It surprises that it happens when there are so many bulbs you would think that enough would be normal at any given moment. I have seen it effect exposure too. The field I shot baseball at this summer the colors ran from a clay red to Martian green. I hated to do it but I added flash at about 1 stop under exp to help the color situation. That measure added red eye sometimes, no win situation. </p>

<p>Fortunately High schools around me have spent some real money lighting the football fields. </p>

<p><em>"It surprises that it happens when there are so many bulbs you would think that enough would be normal at any given moment."</em></p>

<p>The variations can't average out because large groups of bulbs are perfectly synchronized together by virtue of all being powered by the same phase of the 60 Hz power lines. </p>

<p>This is shown perfectly in the animated GIF cited above - you see one group of lights decreasing in intensity while another group is increasing in intensity. BTW, that GIF pseudo-video shows the cyclical luminosity variation quite well, but doesn't do justice to the simultaneous variation in color</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>Thanks for all of the answers. I feel better now! Chris</p>